My Beautiful Girl. (Age 7)

The night before she left to go see her family this weekend, Lisa and I had a little time to visit at her apartment. We had one of those lovely nights where you just lay facing each other and you talk and kiss and tell stories and connect with each other.

In the course of the evening, we discovered that we both have "Presentational Urges" when we're together in our apartments. When she visits me, I want to show her some amazing bit of animation or a Funny Home Videos clip that I've saved for her on my DVR. When I visit her, she board her computer and surfs the internet, showing me websites that she's discovered or funny videos that someone sent her. (The "What's It Going To Be" video down below is something that she showed me.)

Friday night, though, she shared something special with me and I think it's so lovely, so beautiful, that I want to share it with you here.

Lisa's uncle had forwarded some of his home movies onto her. He'd digitized them and stored them in Quicktime videos. Short, home video clips of Little Lisa and her brother and her mother and her father, a couple years before he passed away.

The clip that she showed me on Friday was from 1982 and it's a normal video of Lisa and her brother and her dad horsing around on their back patio. Her dad was teaching her brother how to "throw a punch". He would hold up his hands and Little Mark would throw a gangly-armed punch at his dad and you can hear him on the tape saying, "You call that a punch? Girls punch like that."

Out of sight of the camera, 7 year old Lisa hears this and it gets her Irish up and she applies herself to set her dad straight on how girls punch, exactly. Her dad turns around and he presents his hands to her and Little Lisa throws her biggest, baddest punches...



It's totally "Wonder Woman" time with these punches, right?



This sort of horseplay goes on for a bit. Lisa is swinging away like Joe Louis (if her were trapped in the body of a seven year old New Jersey girl). And then something beautiful happens.

The camera zooms in just as Lisa stops sparring with her dad. He says something to her that the camera doesn't pick up and she considers it...



A private comment between father and daughter. And she looks up at him and smiles at him like this...



And then the camera zooms back out and they go back to horsing around. Her dad turns around and lets her use his butt as a punching bag. He pats her head and she smiles and he walks out of frame. End of tape.

When I saw that smile for the first time it went by on the screen so quickly. If you aren't paying attention, you almost miss it. A moment of pure, loving-daughter delight in between sunny, summertime boxing sessions. But it's there and the camera catches it and it's just so, so beautiful.

That's my girl. I've seen her make that same face, many times, 24 years later. She has the worst poker face in the world. When she's hurt, you know it. When she's angry, Lord, you know it. But when she's happy or delighted, you know that too. She'll share it with you, if you let her. She doesn't hide a thing from you.

I like seeing that she's always been that honest. She adores her daddy in that picture and you can read it a mile away. It's endearing.

No doubt about it, it's beautiful. And so is she.

That's my girl. I do love her so.
(At any age.)

Cheers all,
Mr.B